Greetings, fellow Tropers! This is my first real Liveblog so I hope you all will be patient with me. Let me introduce my game subject.
From the Other Wiki's page on it...
This dispute erupted into a catastrophic civil war. The Dread Lords came close to destroying the Arnor in the war's final battle. However, before the final blow was struck, the Dread Lords and the Arnor both mysteriously vanished.
The younger races eventually began to explore the galaxy on their own but their progress was slow. The first wave of exploration was made possible after the invention of stargates. A stargate was expensive to build and would only transport a ship to another stargate, which first had to be constructed at the destination.
The youngest race, Humanity, obtained plans for the construction of a stargate after the Arcean civilization initiated first contact with them. Human scientists realized that, with the inclusion of a fusion power source, the technology behind the stargates could be modified to create a hyperdrive engine. Hyperdrive allowed starships to travel great distances on their own.
With the entire galaxy now within easy reach, the major space-traveling civilizations began a race to explore, colonize and, in some cases, conquer the galaxy. Armies were mobilized, fleets of warships were built and the galaxy was once again on the verge of total war. As the younger races prepared themselves for the coming conflict, the Dread Lords returned.
The player must guide Humanity's actions as they attempt to prevent Precursor technology from being discovered by their enemies, fight a galactic war between the major powers and survive the onslaught of the genocidal Dread Lords.
So that's a basic idea on the setting. But how does the game handle?
It is a turn-based strategy game about conquering the galaxy, obviously! But the extent of that is that it plays quite a bit like other civilization games. But in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Oh and this is substantially larger than most, with Immense sized galaxies being the largest size. And they aren't kidding when they say Immense. But I don't have the willpower to liveblog something that long... There is a shitload of static bonuses that you'll be paying attention to, like Soldiering and Military Production.
So let's get started then!
First things first; we have to set-up the galaxy we are starting in. So let's look at what we need to pick...
- Galaxy Size: Pretty self-explanatory. We have several options: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gigantic, Immense, Custom and Random. For the sake of my sanity, we shall do a Medium-sized galaxy for this particular campaign.
- Habital Planets: As we fly across the galaxy, we will find any number of planets along the way. This setting determines the amount of planets that can support a population, which is very important to building a large empire. The options here are: Rare, Uncommon, Occasional, Common, Abundant and Random. For this playthrough, I'm leaving this up to the Random Number God and picking Random.
- Number of Planets: While the previous setting determined liveable planets, this one determines the number of planets in general per solar system. Options are the same as Habital Planets, with Rare, Uncommon, Occasional, Common, Abundant and Random. I'm going with Random here as well, because I'm nuts.
- Number of Stars: This setting refers to the number of solar systems* in the galaxy, within which planets are situated. Rare, Uncommon, Occasional, Common, Abundant and Random are our options. I don't feel like entirely trusting chance with this one so let's go with Common.
- Star Density: This is a bit different than the others. Star Density determines where the stars are situated. Tight Clusters, Loose Clusters, Scattered and Random is what we get to choose from. I'll pick Random because I don't feel any real preference in this situation.
- Anomalies: These are pretty interesting things. Anomalies are bizarre floating space events that can range from warpholes that teleport you randomly across the map to a floating space junkyard that can improve some of your static bonuses. Same as Stars, Planets and such in terms of options. I love these so going with Abundant.
- Number of Asteroids: These are helpful for production and income. Abundant for the cash money we need.
- Technology Rate: This is the just like it sounds. Very Slow, Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast and Random. Normal because I am boring.
- Number of Minor Races: These are your Citadel races that aren't important, essentially. They can be helpful or hindering but never all that threatening. They range from 0-9 and Random. Random is what I'll be choosing.
Now that we are done that, let's pick a race. Our options are...
Nah, I won't bother listing them. Too much effort. Let's just skip to who we are using.
The Korath Clan. They were formerly part of the Drengin Empire, who are assholes who plan on conquering all planets in the galaxy. The Korath find this stupid. Instead, they prefer to just wipe out all life besides their own. Hurray for being blatantly and unrepentently evil!
As the Korath Clan, we have access to the Special Ability known as Super Annihilator. It allows us to build a Spore ship that eliminates all life on a planet and turns it into a toxic world. Fun for the whole family.
In addition, we get the Racial Abilities of...
- Weapons +25: Gives an inherent boost to damage that our warships cause.
- Morale +25: Helps to keep the people happy so that we can tax their asses more.
- Military Production +25: Allows us to build ships faster. Makes conquering a lot easier.
- Hit Points +25: Increases the HP of our ships, making them more durable.
- Soldiering +10: Gives a bonus to our invading forces.
- Logistics +7: Allows us to make bigger fleets of ships.
So now let's get to the customization!
- Race Name: Duh. We'll stick with Korath Clan, because why not.
- Leader Name: Evii the Paladin, Warlord of the Korath Clan shall bring death to all those who he doesn't care for!
- Homeworld: Kora is a nice little planet with several beaches and killing-related theme parks.
- Additional Abilities: In addition to our default Racial Abilities, we get 10 points to spend on grabbing some other ones. Rather than list all the available options (there are quite a few), here's what I picked:
- Military Production +20: This stacks with our racial bonus for a total of +45.
- Range +10: This allows our ships to go deeper into the horrorific emptiness of space.
- Speed +1: This allows our ships to travel faster, moving one extra parsec/month.
- Political Party: We'll take up the cause of the War Party, giving us...
- Weapons +10
- Defense +10
- Soldiering +15
Setting up five random races at Normal difficulty, and away we go!
ONWARDS! TO DEATH!
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